E90: Twitter subpoenas, market overview, Pelosi's Taiwan visit & more

It's 630.

I've been through a lot, Sax, right now, but I'm still flirty.

Okay?

Is everybody back up in the building? Sax, it's been a minute. Tell me how you're healing, because I'm about to get into my feelings. How are you feeling, Sax? How you feel right now?

What language are you speaking right now?

You.

Right. Remember when you had at your 50th?

Yeah. When you had beep and she sang.

Beep beep and your was dancing to beep.

Delete that.

Delete that.

Let's start executing the Insta strike with J. Calvin.

Why Insta strike?

When he says something that we just insta strike. We don't have to edit it later. Just instastrike.

It's because I am taking back my power. I was in therapy the other day and they told me I need to take back my power.

Instastrike.

But he apparently reads the comments section because he knew, Friedberg, that you won the episode last week.

Oh, big time.

Which I agree with.

I thought you did.

I agree, too. It was big Friedberg energy. Finally.

I honestly do not like the competitive nature of the show. I think it makes us all hate each other and it's not a good dynamic. We should just fucking do the show with each other.

I know, but the point is, your performance after I threatened to fire you off the show has gone up.

You know who also doesn't like the competitive nature? Jcal. Because he's losing.

Yeah, totally.

The fact that I'm even still here is winning.

I love how Jcal thinks he can threaten to fire Friedberg. It's like the janitor at Staples center thinking he's going to fire LeBron because he played poorly in a game.

This is a motivational technique. I got the best out of him. I'm like Michael Jordan. He's my Dennis Rodgers.

You're like the hot dog dealer. Okay, pal? He's like LeBron James. You're the hot dog dealer.

I do not instastrike these comments.

Let your winners ride, rain man. David Saturn. We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Love you, queen of Kinwa.

All right, everybody, welcome to the all.

In Pod with us again.

David Freeberg took a break from playing.

His stray video cat game.

Sax is here in his deposition, apparently.

By the way, do you guys want to see this? Look at the size of this jCal's.

Apparently playing no comment today on the show. I will open the show by asking David Sachs, would you like to tell us about what you're holding in your hand?

Yeah. Okay. So I got this subpoena from Twitter. This is a non party subpoena for.

Didn't Twitter subpoena your tweets?

Yes. Let me get to that. Is this subpoena?

I thought they're public.

They are.

These knitwits have Walktel Lipton billing them of probably $2,000 an hour to subpoena tweets that are public. I mean, brilliant strategy, but this is called a subpoena for production of business records in an action pending outside California. So I'm not a party to the laws. At least they're not suing me because I have no involvement in this thing.

But they sent me the broadest ever subpoena.

It's like 30 pages of requests. And now I got to hire a lawyer to go quash this thing because they basically want any of my communications with any of my friends over the last six months. It's insane.

Zach, can you just explain to the audience and to us, this is a court sanctioned subpoena? The court is basically allowing the lawyers to demand that you hand over these communications. Is that right?

Yeah, but I haven't had a chance to fight it yet. So now, at my own expense, I got to hire a lawyer and go send them to fight it, because this is a ridiculous over broad subpoena. And by the way, I'm not even involved in this thing. I'm just a commenter on Twitter. I don't have any. Let me just save Walktel lifting a lot of time right now. I'm not in possession of non public information about this. And the craziest thing is, yeah, like you mentioned, they cite my tweets as an exhibit here, and they say they.

Want all documents and communications concerning your.

Statement in a tweet dated April 16 that the, quote, new Twitter CEO checklist includes eliminate all bots and fire useless employees, 50% question mark. So obviously, they didn't like that. Your statement in a tweet dated April 25. Crazy thought. What if Jack masterminded this whole thing? Your statement in a tweet dated July 18, that, quote, randomly sampling 100 accounts a day is not a serious effort. And or your statements in any other.

Tweet concerning the merger, blah, blah.

Let me just save them time right now. I don't have documents and communications concerning my tweets. Now, I know to a lawyer at Walktel, Lipton that looking at my tweets and how brilliant they are, you may think that I have extensive documentation and source material for them. But let me tell you what happened. I went to go take a shit, and I basically tweeted off the cuff. And that's how that tweet ended up in the public record. There are no documents and communications concerning my tweets. And this idea that somehow, I guess what they're trying to get at is that somehow I was tweeting on behalf of someone or at someone's behest. Not true. Go look. Well, before this year, at my public tweets and blogs about the topic of free speech, I've been a critic of Twitter's for a long time on the issue of free speech. I've written about what I think a content moderation policy for a social network that cares about free speech should know. I've written all these posts on medium going back years now. I was a critic of Twitter throwing Donald Trump off the platform. So these views that I've publicly stated are the reason I've stated them is they're just my views and there's just nothing more nefarious or something behind them other than that. And I think they're just trying to chase a there that there is no there there.

Right.

Let me just. A lot of time you and I.

Can talk because our friends have no.

Comment on this matter.

Yeah, one question. I have a follow up question. During this movement that you had and you composed the tweet, is there any.

Documentation of the movement?

No, but next time that I compose a tweet on the can, I will document it thoroughly and I will send the lawyers that walked out.

Lipton, what happens if you don't respond in 20 days?

I don't know. Now I've hired a lawyer, by the way, just so people understand. You may think that because of my position in business or something, that these things happen all the time. They don't. I've been maybe subpoenaed, like, three times in my entire career, and I've never been subpoenaed in my capacity as an individual. It's always been in connection with a company, and I don't think I've gotten one of these in over five years. So this just does not happen that often. These guys are totally chasing at straws, and it leads me to believe they're wasting my time and Twitter's money and they're trying to, somebody at Twitter should just rein in their lawyers, because I'm sure racking up a fortune in legal fees.

It sounds like Sachs. The case is that they're trying to make that Elon used his network of friends to help wash away the deal because he didn't like the price anymore and had his know, kind of tweet about bots and other stuff to support his case for killing the deal because he didn't like the price. And they're trying to see if there's any communications that he specifically said he didn't like.

The all, in addition to my tweets, they want all my documents and correspondence related to my appearance on Megyn Kelly, my appearance on the Will Kane podcast, and other media appearances. Look, you know, I had no coordination with Elon before appearing on any of those shows. I just went on those shows and said what I think. I mean, look, it's not like I'm a guy who doesn't have hot takes every single week on various. That we've been doing this podcast for years. I've been tweeting for years. I'm just a commentator on this. I've never been in possession of non public information, and I've tweeted my takes based on the public information that's been available about this. You know, after I appeared, for example, on Will Cain, I remember Elon tweeted in support of my appearance, but there was no coordination before I appeared or after, for that matter. He just liked the appearance. So it's just me spouting off, doing what I've been doing on this pod and tweeting for years now. I can understand if maybe they're trying to read something into it. They're on a fishing expedition. But I've just told, I just think.

The whole thing is just such an enormous waste of time. Just get into court, adjudicate the thing, and move on.

I was reading yesterday this guy who follows the Delaware courts pretty closely. He had a bunch of commentary and he mimicked some of the stuff, or the judge, apparently on the case said some stuff about preserving the integrity of the court, meaning that the interpretation people are making is that ultimately the court is unlikely to try and force the merger, because if the merger then doesn't get consummated, it damages the reputation of the court's ability to make enforcement action. Therefore, it's more likely that they just impose a fine.

But what is the enforcement action? If, I don't know, we should ask somebody who's forced the merger.

No, but force Elon to buy Twitter.

But what does that mean, force?

I don't know about that. Okay. All I know is that this discovery request is overly broad. It's a phishing expedition. It's harassment of me. It's going to cost me time and money to get rid of this thing. I didn't do anything to deserve it or prompt this. I wasn't part of the transaction. I just wasn't. And I've never said anything in regards to the transaction that should lead anyone to believe that I'm in possession of non public information.

Yeah.

So this is harassment as punitive. And the fact that they're citing my tweets in which I